Welcome to Body Talk 2.0!

Why I'm re-launching and what's coming up next....

Hello Friends!

This is my first post back in over… how long has it been now? I think my last post was in November of last year? Anyway, 10 months or so! I thought for sure that I was laying down Body Talk indefinitely, but now I know God wanted to really refine what Body Talk is exactly and what the messaging is going to be here. As I have aged, I have learned to appreciate this process more than anything. There is nothing quite like a good refining fire. It’s what makes the clay shine, after all.

It feels really good to be back. Like, more than good. It feels like I finally have a clear path forward after a couple of years of shooting around in the dark, hoping something was going to stick!

If you are new here, I created Body Talk in 2023 to help women break free from toxic diet culture by becoming a certified nutrition coach. After working with dozens of women, walking them through my personal coaching program and hearing their stories, I realized something was missing. 

Something was lurking deep under the surface of our pursuit of “health and wellness.” 

For most of us, the narrative was the same: our bodies always felt like projects, something that needed to change, improve, or be fixed. We were trying every diet, every workout program, every cleanse and every detox we could get our hands on, but nothing was bringing deep inner contentment and satisfaction. 

We were also grieving the loss of years wasted, striving after an unattainable ideal, looking back on photos of our younger, beautiful selves with sadness and regret, wishing we could have only loved who we were in the moment. 

When did women start to believe their bodies were a problem to be fixed?

This was the question that changed the course of my own life and the mission of Body Talk. 

Naomi Wolf said, “Dieting is the most potent political sedative of our time” keeping us from working towards systemic change and equality for women. While I believe that to be true, I also began to ask the question: “What if dieting and the pursuit of thinness and physical beauty is the most potent spiritual sedative of our time?”

How long have women worshiped at the altar of thinness and physical beauty at the cost of our true purpose here on earth as believers: to follow Jesus with our whole hearts? To worship something is to be completely devoted to it. To think of it every waking hour, to meditate on it, to sacrifice yourself for it.

This was when everything shifted.

I was confronted with the gentle truth that my relentless pursuit and worship of thinness and physical beauty was keeping me from living my fullest life. This pursuit wasn’t a glaring red flag in my life. It was just a constant hum in the background. A slow and insidious drip of poison that infected my thoughts, my words, my behaviors and my beliefs about myself and who I was created to be.

This idea felt rebellious, but revelatory. 

Where did this idea, this thin-ideal, even come from? How long has it been infecting the lives and the hearts and minds of women and girls? How bad is the damage and how do we even begin to look for ways to heal?

Over the last two years, I’ve spent countless hours researching the origins of the thin ideal and how systems, companies, and institutions have used it to profit off of the insecurity of women.

By combining my story battling negative body image with my experience in evidence-based practice through obtaining my masters in nursing and practicing as a nurse practitioner, I have developed a pathway for healing that is research based while also being Christ-centered; something I believe is missing from the spaces where women’s body image is being discussed. 

Body Talk hasn’t always been about faith. In fact, I originally wanted to leave faith completely out of it for fear of alienating a large portion of a potential audience. My original content relied heavily on the help of science and research to get us pointed in the right direction and while I believe that to be a positive pathway forward, I simply cannot deny that both science and my faith have helped shape the healing of my mind and heart as it relates to my body image. I do not believe that one can exist without the other.

My hope is that those who have come for the science, will also stay for the faith and those who have come for the faith, will also stay for the science.

Romans 12:2 is the cornerstone upon which Body Talk is built and the foundation of my mission and vision.

“Do not be conformed to the patterns of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to discern what is God’s will - His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

My approach to healing is based on the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM) - a cyclical process where women move through predictable stages of readiness as it relates to healing negative body image. Women will be met with interventions and resources that match where they are in each step of the process.

I deeply believe the TTM reflects God’s design for renewing the mind. The TTM helps us understand that change is a journey, not a one-and-done decision and that in order to experience the fullness of God’s design for us here on earth, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. 

We cannot know where we are going if we have no idea how we got here and my goal and mission is that Body Talk will be the ticket to true freedom for women in healing negative body image and walking in the fullness of Christ.

I am currently in the development phase of a small group curriculum and writing my very first book! In my true, type-A fashion, I hoped to have months worth of content lined up for you, ready to share, but the truth is, I am still working this out in my own life and working through the process of building this ministry, writing this book and its curriculum. I thought what better way to build it than to bring you all along for the ride, sharing what I am learning along the way.

If you would like to continue to be a part of the mission and support the heart of Body Talk, I would love to have you here! If this is not what you believe you signed up for, absolutely no hard feelings. You can unsubscribe at any time.

All of the content here will remain free. I am currently committing to a once a month newsletter and will be sharing more daily content over on Instagram at @bodytalk_edu. You can read more about the mission, vision and the core values of Body Talk here!

Once again, thanks so much for being here.

Tiffany